Estimates Of Water Ingestion For Women In Pregnant, Lactating And Non-Pregnant And Non-Lactating Child Bearing Age Groups Based On USDA's 1994-96, 1998 Continuing Survey Of Food Intake By Individuals (Journal Article)
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Women in the child bearing age of 15 to 44 years and, in particular, pregnant and lactating women in this age cohort are considered a sensitive subpopulation when assessing risk from ingestion of contaminated water because ingested contaminants may pose a risk not only to the mother but to the fetus or infant. This paper presents estimates of daily average per capita water ingestion for women of child bearing age and in three subgroups: pregnant, lactating, and non-pregnant/non-lactating women. Estimates of means and upper percentiles of subgroup ingestion distributions were generated using data from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 1994-96 and 1998 Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII) survey. These estimates are empirical and thus are not based on an assumed parametric distribution of ingestion. Water occurring naturally in foods or added by manufacturers to commercial products is not included in the estimates presented. These estimates of water ingestion by women of child bearing age are compared to those published by Burmaster (1998) which were based on data collected in 1978 and analyzed assuming that the distribution of ingestion is lognormal. The Burmaster estimates are generally greater than the estimates based on the CSFII data.